


we pull apart the dark, compete against the stars

by mapped



Category: Black Sails
Genre: 3x10, Anal Sex, Episode Related, First Kiss, First Time, Insecurity, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 04:56:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6409669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapped/pseuds/mapped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Silver learns about Thomas Hamilton, he cannot stop thinking about that man and what he means to Flint. He knows that he wants Flint, but how can Flint want him back when he's nothing like this man that Flint speaks of with such undisguised adoration?</p>
            </blockquote>





	we pull apart the dark, compete against the stars

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [we pull apart the dark, compete against the stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10366695) by [rose_rose (Escargot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escargot/pseuds/rose_rose)
  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> I would love to see something in the wake of the s3 finale. Now that Silver knows about Thomas, finally confronting the pull he feels towards Flint and realizing attraction is part of that. But also, knowing what he does about Thomas, Silver feeling insecure that he could never give Flint anything close to that. Maybe even manifesting as impotency when he tries to engage in a physical relationship with Flint, and how Silver works past that.
> 
> \---
> 
> I love this prompt and I really hope I did it justice! Title from the song 'In the Embers' by Sleeping At Last.

A war to plan for, Jack Rackham says, and Silver’s blood runs cold. Flint is always speaking of wars. Flint’s entire life seems to be one war after another, and Silver has followed him into each one for as long as he has known Flint. But Jack Rackham says war, and Silver thinks, _fuck_.

He thinks, _is it possible that I might survive a war?_

He thinks of Flint’s undaunted resolution and unwavering purpose, and he thinks of all the secrets buried like treasure beneath Flint’s skin. He has done much to unearth some of those secrets, but one, he knows, still lies silent and deep.

He perceives its presence in everything Flint does. He knows that at the heart of that secret is a person, and he would hazard that it was a loss: he has seen what Mrs Barlow’s death motivated Flint to do, and he recognises that something resembling it must have been driving Flint long before that. From the day Silver met him, it has been there.

Left alone in the dark with Flint, with only the hum of insects and the looming trees around them, Silver thinks it is as good a time as any to see whether this last secret may be prised from Flint’s heart.

He does not expect Flint to give it up so freely.

Flint sits down. His voice is calm as he narrates the tale. Listening to the cadence of that voice, smooth like a river, Silver begins to understand how distant and yet hauntingly close this loss is for Flint. It has been ten years: plenty of time, Silver might suppose, to grieve and move on. After all, Silver can hardly remember anything that happened to him ten years ago. He would expect that Flint too might have forgotten much, but then, Silver realises, that part in itself must be excruciating for him. The forgetting.

Silver is not one to care much for the past, but for Flint, he has come to see, the past is everything.

What must it be like to feel the only remains of something that was once so important slipping away?

Something so important that Flint still lives every single day guided by the memory of it, of the moment civilisation robbed him of it. A love utterly extinguished in reality and dimmed even in Flint’s own mind, and yet somehow still blazing eternal in the core of Flint’s being.

Flint’s story has confirmed Silver’s suspicion: there was a third person, besides Mr Gates and Mrs Barlow, who had enjoyed a close relationship with Flint and died because of it. Silver had long been worried that he too might fall victim to such a fate. But earlier today, he went and informed Dobbs of the part he was to play in luring Hornigold into the ambush. Silver had not fully trusted up until that moment that his own ploy would work, but the fervency in Dobbs’ eyes upon hearing that Silver had personally chosen him for this critical task dissolved any doubt he had.

Dobbs will not let him down; Dobbs could not _bear_ to let him down.

That realisation had hit like the hot slide of liquor down his throat.

He is no longer afraid that Flint might be his end. He now sees that there might be a second option: that he might prove to be Flint’s end instead. And he doesn’t like that any more than he did the alternative.

He has fought this hard to get where he is, to be on equal footing with Flint so that Flint might heed his suggestions. He cares about Flint’s survival as much as his own; he admitted as much to him that night in the cage.

It is only fair that he tells Flint this now; a truth for a truth.

Flint resists the idea at first, but Silver presses on. He has to make Flint see what dangers he might pose to Flint. He does not want Flint to go forward blindly, for them to entangle themselves further in a web that would only lead to the destruction of one of them.

But Flint, Flint only enumerates all the things that he has survived: _starvation, a tempest, pirate hunters, jealous captains, mutinous crews, angry lords, a queen, a king, and the goddamn British navy_. He lists them and he says, “I would’t worry too much.”

His cavalier attitude towards being told that Silver might be his end surprises Silver only for a moment: truly Silver should have expected no less from the man who had sailed directly into a storm instead of taking the pardons offered him.

Flint is smiling, baring his teeth to Silver.

Silver thinks of the times previous when he has seen that smile on Flint’s face. He thinks of how he survived some of those things right there alongside Flint, how Flint would not even have survived quite a few of those things if not for the very fact that Silver had been beside him. But more than that, he thinks about how he has managed to survive Flint himself.

It was not all that long ago that Flint wanted to kill him.

And yet here they are, and they are—they _are_ friends.

And because they are friends now, because they are equals, because Silver has prompted Flint to see a second outcome where Flint would not have to shoulder the burden of causing the death of another person close to him, Flint is excited to see whether it will play out the way Silver suggests it will. Flint _wants_ to find out where they will end up.

And Silver, well. Silver cannot deny that smile.

To think he used to be frightened of it, once.

Anything is possible.

* * *

The idea of the war ahead doesn’t unsettle Silver as much now, but something else has replaced it, thrumming in his blood, and he cannot sleep.

He can only dwell on Flint’s countenance during their conversation, so open and unguarded, carrying the hints of an enduring grief. When they were talking together in the lantern light, Silver had not been particularly taken aback or bothered when Flint revealed that he had been in love with another man. Flint has always been set apart from other men in many ways, and this, Silver thought, was just one more thing to add to the record.

Now, though, as Silver lies in bed and repeats the words of their conversation to himself, it sinks in that this does not merely make Flint different from most men: it is what makes Flint _at all_.

Flint would not exist if not for the fact that ten years ago, somewhere in London, Lieutenant James McGraw had met Lord Thomas Hamilton and fallen in love.

The simple fact of that leaves Silver feeling winded, a nauseous pain that echoes in his stomach.

Silver has never been in love, but even if he has, he does not believe he would be the type to experience love in such a way as Flint does, in a way that shakes the very foundations of his self.

Flint is waging war in the name of such a love, a love beyond Silver’s comprehension.

He wonders what it is to feel that kind of love—to feel it, and then to lose it.

As dawn begins to colour the sky outside, lifting the veil of darkness from the land, Silver is still awake, unbridled thoughts chasing each other in circles inside his mind.

Is it better or worse that he is now ceaselessly and fruitlessly pondering what Thomas Hamilton looked like rather than calculating his odds of surviving the fray in a couple of days’ time?

* * *

They have a meeting with the Queen to confirm their strategy for the upcoming battle. Silver finds that he cannot concentrate in the slightest. Seeing Flint again in daylight startles him, almost as if he were seeing a ghost. He doesn’t know why he thought that things might be different between them after last night, but Flint is his usual self, sullen, contemplative, gruff.

Silver has barely managed to snatch a whisper of sleep; his leg aches, and all he wants is to return to the previous night, to the middle of the forest, to the shadows and the pleasant numbness that alcohol imparted and the honest words that passed between him and Flint.

Ridiculous questions clamour in his head: was the weather in London fair the day Flint met Thomas? Did Flint _know_ , from the very first time he set eyes upon Thomas?

Did Flint ever have anyone before Thomas came along?

He also desperately wishes he could gain access to tidbits of information that only the dead Thomas would have been privy to. What did Flint look like, the day Thomas met him? Not whether he was growing a beard or how long his hair was, though Silver finds himself wondering those things too, but how young he looked, and what his eyes communicated, what Thomas saw in him at first sight.

Silver has always known that it tortures Flint to be seen as the villain, and over the course of their acquaintance, Silver has seen more and more how Flint is not simply the monster feared by half the world, the hardened pirate who seems to others to kill as easily as he takes breath. But Silver has never been so acutely aware that Flint was once someone else entirely.

Now he has that knowledge, he finds that it is beginning to torture him, too.

(What did Flint look like after Thomas kissed him for the first time? What did Flint look like when he undressed before Thomas, when he went to his knees before Thomas, when he put his mouth to Thomas’—)

Rackham has started to speak, and Flint is looking at Silver from across the room. Flint is standing straight with his hands clasped behind his back, and Flint was once McGraw, was once a military man and Thomas Hamilton had seen him and loved him and given him the world, and then it had all been taken away.

Silver meets Flint’s gaze for a fraction of a second and then has to look away again. He feels dizzy and too warm, and his leg is sorer than before. He puts a hand on the table beside him and shifts his weight a little, and keeps his eyes on everyone else but Flint for the rest of the meeting.

* * *

It is the eve of battle, and Silver has not once stopped thinking about Thomas Hamilton. He still cannot decide whether that is preferable to being preoccupied by gloomy thoughts of dying in battle.

Well, he _is_ also preoccupied by gloomy thoughts of death, but not merely the possibility of his own. Flint is going to be out there on the beach, right there on the front line of battle, and while there is still a not negligible chance that Silver may get hit, the odds are far worse for Flint.

If Flint dies, everything is likely to fall apart.

Silver goes out for a walk to clear his head. The night is deepening, and since everyone else has already retired to bed apart from the scouts posted around the camp, for once Silver uses a stick he found on the ground to take some pressure off his leg, thinking of how much he needs to conserve his strength for battle and to be able to stand firmly tomorrow.

The moon is bright tonight, and unobscured. He spots Flint before he’s close. Flint is sitting at the edge of the water, looking out over it, his back to Silver.

Silver hesitates, wondering whether he should simply leave Flint alone. Then he drops the stick quietly and walks towards the water. The soft ground here absorbs the thump of his iron leg, but even so, when he is a few paces behind Flint, Flint turns and looks up at him.

“Nervous about tomorrow?” Flint asks.

“A little,” Silver confesses.

Flint offers his hand to help Silver sit down beside him, and Silver takes it and sits, stretching his legs out before him. They stare at the ink-black water together for a while, unspeaking.

Then Silver inclines his head to regard Flint instead. Flint is playing with a pebble, scratching it insistently into the soil in a seemingly arbitrary pattern.

“We’ll find out whether your plan with Dobbs works,” Flint says, lightly.

“Oh, it will,” Silver says, letting a playful surety creep into his tone.

“It’d better, or neither of us will live to see this moon again.” A smile is tugging at Flint’s lips, and Silver wants to know what that will feel like against his own mouth. If Flint dies, everything is likely to fall apart. If Flint dies, he won’t ever know—

Silver swallows. 

He won’t ever know anyway.

Flint turns his head and his eyes meet Silver’s, and Silver cannot wrench away his gaze this time. “You have more faith in me than that,” he says, his throat suddenly dry and his voice a hoarse murmur.

“I do,” Flint says, and his brows furrow, as if he intended his words to be a question and he’s bewildered to find that they have emerged as an affirmation instead.

Silver’s heart leaps, and he’s still looking into Flint’s eyes.

Flint’s appearance is eerily ghostlike under this moonlight, his eyes colourless, his face shadowed, his scalp glowing.

It isn’t as if Flint hasn’t come within a hair’s breadth of confronting his demise so many times that one might suppose that Death herself is quite fed up with seeing James Flint at her gates; she has thrust him back into the land of the living countless times, and she might be trusted to do so again.

But she might not.

Then Flint’s gaze is dropping to Silver’s lips, and he is leaning in, slowly, and Silver knows what is happening, and he knows he wants it, but Flint—Flint once was kissed by man who was good and true and who wanted to change the world for the better and who was willing to go to any lengths to realise his ideals. Silver doesn’t even _have_ ideals, he just has the present and he has his own life and all he wants is to live it, so when Thomas Hamilton’s name burns through Silver’s mind for the briefest of moments, Silver feels himself jerk away ever so slightly without meaning to.

In the same breath, before disappointment even has a chance to surface in Flint’s eyes, Silver gets control of his own movements and surges forward to compensate, to meet Flint’s lips with his.

He tries to be gentle, thinking of the way that Flint had spoken of Thomas two nights ago, still with a trace of reverence in his voice. He brings his palm up to rest on Flint’s cheek. But the kiss that begins calm and unhurried like a rippling lake becomes the churning sea when Flint presses closer and licks at Silver’s mouth with his tongue, worrying Silver’s bottom lip with his teeth, sucking on it until Silver groans. He fights back with a vengeance, tugging the hem of Flint’s shirt out so he can slide one hand underneath, running it up and down Flint’s chest, brushing against Flint’s nipple to elicit a hitch in Flint’s breath.

Then Flint is lowering his mouth to Silver’s jaw, to Silver’s neck, his tongue hot and wet against Silver’s skin. Silver shivers and his mind goes as dark as the night, all thoughts shuttered, and his hand falls to the hard bulge in Flint’s trousers and he squeezes and Flint moans raggedly into the juncture of Silver’s neck and shoulder, and his teeth graze the skin there for a moment like the friendliest blade Silver has ever felt.

And then Flint is pulling away, and Silver notices how Flint is struggling to get his breathing back to a normal rate.

“Easy there,” Flint says. “I think that’s enough for tonight.” 

Silver scoffs. “What, you’re just going to go to sleep now?”

“Yes, I am,” Flint says, a smirk hanging off his lips. “I hear abstinence before a battle, Mr. Quartermaster, has its benefits.”

Silver can hardly believe what he’s hearing.

Flint pushes himself up and off the dirt, and Silver grabs his hand, a little more viciously than usual, to pull himself up with him.

They pat their hands on their trousers to wipe them of grit, and Silver asks, “Are you sure I can’t change your mind?” He ensures his voice is as silky and laden with promise as possible. “I can be very persuasive.”

Flint laughs. “I’m sure you can,” he says, looking at Silver with eyes that spark with heat. Then he starts to trudge up the slope. “We’ll reconvene tomorrow night,” he calls as he leaves, lifting a hand into the air by way of a vague farewell. “So you’d better hope Dobbs does what you say he’ll do.” 

Silver opens his mouth and closes it again.

Flint has to be just as certain as he is that Dobbs won’t betray them, but Silver does his best to memorise this picture of Flint’s broad back as he strides away, just in case.

* * *

Flint’s hands are on Silver’s skin; there is still the rest of the war to fight, but they are alive, and Flint is here in his bed now, crouched over him, kissing him, yet Silver just cannot seem to lay his thoughts to rest.

It’s the first time he’s been with anyone since he lost half his leg, but he’s resourceful enough, he hopes, that it should not present much of a problem. He has never been to bed with another man before; he doesn’t think it should be all that different to bedding a woman. He’s a perceptive man, and that pays off in all areas of life, including in matters of the flesh. He’s confident that if anyone were to ask any of his previous bedmates for a review of his performances, that review was bound to be above average. For Silver, it’s simply a question of figuring out what the other person wants so he can give it to them and get what he wants in return, and he’s naturally adept at that.

But with Flint—Flint has always been a man of such depths as Silver cannot fathom, and now he knows the source of those depths, the point at which Flint, once a placid stream, transformed into the roiling ocean. Thomas showed Flint what it was to be a good man, and when Thomas was taken away, Flint suddenly found he had so much further to fall.

Silver can even imagine it all, the whole romantic affair, the sweet, exploratory touches at the beginning, accompanied by the sweet swell of the violin which mounts into a mournful threnody as James McGraw watches all he has known crumble into dust at the end. Silver still can’t know what Thomas Hamilton looks like, but his mind’s eye conjures someone tall, unquestionably handsome, with a smile that speaks only of genuine kindness and honesty.

How can Silver give Flint what he wants, when he knows what standards he will be measured against? Silver is a common man who looks out only for his own interests. He doesn’t know how to love anyone; he can be a good fuck, but that’s it.

And he wants—he _wants_ to be a good fuck for Flint, but what does Flint want?

His thoughts simply won’t still, crashing repeatedly into him like waves against a cliff. He tries his best to kiss Flint back, but he is perturbed by the way he cannot restrain the harassment of his own mind.

Flint pulls away a little to look into Silver’s eyes for a moment, as if sensing that something is not quite right.

Silver takes the opportunity to sit up just slightly and pull off his shirt so he does not have to meet Flint’s eyes for too long. Flint clearly approves and is distracted by the new territory of skin revealed; his eyes rove over it, and he smooths a hand down Silver’s side. He dips his mouth to the middle of Silver’s chest and kisses him there, gliding his lips to the right over Silver’s skin and onto Silver’s nipple, and he licks at it insistently as it hardens into a point under his tongue. Silver lets out a soft moan, which sounds distant to his own ears; it feels good, it does, but he still cannot anchor himself fully in the moment.

Flint’s mouth descends over the muscles of his belly, and for a little while, it tickles, especially where Flint’s soft beard rubs over the skin at his waist. That particular feeling grounds Silver somewhat, because it takes effort to prevent himself from laughing out loud.

“It was very difficult to stop,” Flint says, suddenly, making Silver aware of just how little either of them have spoken since the start of their encounter and how unfamiliar that feels. “Last night, by the water.”

Flint’s fingers are undoing Silver’s trousers deftly, and Flint is saying, “You have no _idea_ how much I wanted you to fuck me then and there.”

Silver freezes, disarmed by Flint’s admittance. It is not something he could have predicted, neither the outright statement of the desire nor the desire itself. He would have ventured that Flint would have wanted to fuck _him_ , not the other way round.

“You’re surprised,” Flint says, pausing.

“I didn’t think I’d ever hear you say that,” Silver says, choosing his words to be deliberately ambiguous. “I was simply savouring the moment.”

“Hmm,” Flint says, and Silver can’t tell whether Flint believes him. Flint taps Silver’s hip with his hand and Silver shifts so Flint can draw off his trousers.

Silver is only half-hard, but he expects Flint’s ministrations will soon get him all the way there. Except, now that he is completely naked before Flint, who is still clothed, he feels cold even though the night is warm, and even though Flint’s body heat felt overwhelmingly close just seconds ago.

“Do you want me to take your boot off?” Flint asks, gently.

“Why don’t I take it off myself,” Silver suggests, “while you rid yourself of your clothes, Captain.”

Flint smiles. “I’ll do that. But you should call me James.” He runs the back of his fingers down the curve of Silver’s jaw, and he looks so unbearably fond, and he is asking Silver to call him James, and Silver feels like he does not deserve any of this. Flint thinks Silver can be what Thomas was to him, but Silver is just a man with one leg, who cannot be trusted, who tricked his way to Flint’s—to Flint’s heart.

He cannot call Flint James.

Flint shuffles over to the end of the narrow bed to give them both more space to manoeuvre. Silver unstraps his metal boot and sets it on the floor, knowing it well enough by now that he does not have to look at it as he detaches it, so he can turn his head and watch while Flint efficiently strips, uncovering the lean lines of his body for Silver to feast his eyes upon, to discover the several scars that mark it.

When Thomas saw this body, was it scarred at all?

Flint puts his hand on Silver’s chest and pushes Silver back down onto the bed, and then he lowers his head and takes Silver’s mostly soft cock into his wet mouth, and Silver shudders at the feeling of that wetness enveloping him. He can feel himself harden a little as Flint laps his tongue against it and then wraps his lips around it and sucks like he means it, and God, does Flint know what he’s doing. Silver is quite sure that Flint is better at this than even the whores he’s had before. But as wonderful as it feels, Silver’s cock just doesn’t seem to be responding with the enthusiasm it normally does.

Christ, he thought that he could at least be a good fuck, but it turns out that he can’t even be that. He feels a bitter lump rising in his throat at the uselessness of his own body, how it can never do anything he wants it to these days: not even something as simple as this.

He doesn’t want to make Flint stay down there too long with no results to show for it, so he says, trying to sound more light-hearted than he feels, “Wouldn’t you like to fuck me instead?” 

Flint lifts his mouth off of Silver’s cock, which now glistens with spit and is yet barely halfway there. “You’re worried about something,” he says. “You should tell me what it is. If it’s still all this stuff about you being my end—” 

“It’s not that,” Silver interrupts. Fuck, this is a disaster.

“You do want me, don’t you?” Flint asks, and he suddenly looks so goddamn vulnerable, eyes wide and mouth slack with unconcealed concern. Silver’s chest constricts. “If you’ve just been going along with it because—”

“I want you,” Silver says, and he knows that’s true. “I want you to fuck me.”

Flint’s gaze drops momentarily to Silver’s prick, and Silver feels the hot throb of shame in his throat.

“I want to make this good for you,” Flint says.

“Do you?” Silver asks. “Do you really?”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Flint says, his forehead wrinkling, and something twists in Silver’s gut, seeing Flint like this, hostile and confused and hurt all at once.

“What I mean is, is it me you really want?” Silver asks. “I’m nothing like Thomas Hamil—”

He doesn’t get to the end of the sentence. He sees the name he is partway through saying register in Flint’s mind, Flint’s nostrils flaring as he inhales angrily, and then Flint is upon him. Flint’s whole body is heavily crowding him down into the bed until the wooden frame of it creaks, and Flint is kissing him with an intensity that has not been there previously, a kiss like white salt spray seething upon the rocks. Silver is breathless with it, and yet he clings to his unquiet mind, unable to drown just yet.

Flint kisses the corner of Silver’s mouth, then across his jaw, tracing the line of it up to Silver’s ear. “You want me to fuck you?” Flint asks, his breath hot, sending a jolt of liquid fire down Silver’s body, and then Flint bites at the lobe, sucks at it.

“Yes,” Silver says. “But I—”

“Then shut up for a minute,” Flint says gruffly.

Silver doesn’t intend to comply, but Flint starts kissing him behind his ear and trailing kisses downwards to Silver’s neck, nibbling kisses, sloppy kisses, teeth and tongue applied in equal measure, and Silver moans when he thinks about what dark bruises might bloom there, visible for anyone to see, and yet he cannot for the life of him tell Flint to stop. Flint is steadying himself on the bed with one elbow but his other hand is running up and down the insides of Silver’s thighs, his touches light as shadow, no longer going near Silver’s cock but pointedly avoiding it, and Silver doesn’t know if he is embarrassed anymore. He can feel the hard length of Flint’s cock against his stomach, and though he has been telling Flint to fuck him just to take the attention off his own ability to perform, he now knows that he actually wants it.

He wants to feel Flint inside him, stretching him open.

Flint shifts, looking over the side of the bed, and then he picks up a small jar from their heap of clothes on the floor. Oil, of course. He has come prepared, expecting— _wanting_ Silver to fuck him.

Silver is sorry to disappoint, but his cock still lies stubbornly softer than it ought to be, despite the fact that Silver feels like he’s about to brim over with need. Flint lies on his side at the very edge of the tiny bed, facing Silver; while he opens the jar and dips his fingers into the oil, Silver wraps his hand around Flint’s cock, and he marvels at the feeling of it, how thick and stiff it is, heavy and hot like a smooth river stone heated by the midday sun. He rubs it up and down a few times, and he hears Flint groan and he bites his lip at the thought that this—this is going to be inside him.

Flint sets the jar aside and leans over Silver to kiss him once more. Silver spreads his legs when he feels Flint’s slick hand on his thigh, and Flint slips his hand over Silver’s balls, rolling them languorously before dipping down past them, massaging the very sensitive skin there for a moment and earning a gasp from Silver, who then starts to bite at Flint’s lip in revenge.

Flint slides his other hand under Silver and squeezes Silver’s buttock with it, and his finger is circling Silver’s hole and it feels good but it’s also so _new_ ; Silver tries to relax by focusing on kissing Flint’s neck to see if he can’t draw more noises from Flint.

“John,” Flint says, pressing a finger inside, slowly but deeply. “John, look at me.”

Flint is saying Silver’s first name as if he’s been saying it all his life, as if there is nothing particularly momentous about it, as if this is just the way it’s always been, and Silver doesn’t know what he should make of it at all. His cock twitches, though he’s not sure whether that’s in response to Flint’s use of his name or to Flint’s finger, which is working in and out of him. He drops his head back onto the bed so he can look into Flint’s eyes while Flint pushes a second oiled finger inside, warm and smooth like velvet, loosening Silver up.

“I’m well aware that you’re not Thomas,” Flint says. “And I want you.”

“I’m not—”

“Hush,” Flint says, lifting his clean hand to Silver’s face and rubbing his thumb at the edge of Silver’s mouth. “I don’t want you to try to be him, either.” He dips his thumb past Silver’s lips into his mouth and Silver sucks it greedily, pleased at how it makes Flint moan.

Flint presses a third finger into Silver’s hole, and it’s beginning to ache just a little, but Silver has had to handle a lot of pain in the months since he lost half his leg to protect his crew, and in that whole time, no pain has ever felt the way this feels, simmering with pleasure all the way. He says, impatient to feel more, “I’m ready.”

Flint eyes dart quickly to his in warning, reminding him to shut up once again, but he takes his fingers out and pours more oil onto his cock from the jar. He nudges Silver’s shoulder so Silver rolls to lie on his right side with his back to Flint, knees crooked. He feels Flint mould their bodies close, his back to Flint’s chest and all their knees pressed together.

He holds himself open with one hand to give Flint better access, and Flint parts Silver’s thick hair to sink a biting kiss into the back of Silver’s neck in what feels like a reward, and Silver melts with how good that kiss feels on skin that is always hidden from sight by his long hair. And then Flint is pushing inside him; it burns in the most exquisite way, and Silver is so glad to be able to experience this kind of pain again, the kind of pain that makes his body feel new and remarkable instead of old and worthless.

Flint is _fucking_ him, and Silver tries to forget how he’s only doing that because Silver can’t get his cock hard enough to fuck Flint himself.

Flint is gathering Silver’s hair in his hand and tugging at it while he thrusts into Silver, and his voice is by Silver’s ear again, low and soft, “I want you because you’re that little shit who stole the Urca schedule and burned it to save your own skin.”

Silver’s breath hitches and he forgets everything entirely, transported back to that moment when he had sat before Eleanor Guthrie’s desk and bravely proclaimed to Flint that he couldn’t die because the schedule was in his head, and he’d told Flint they might be friends, and Flint had smiled at him in that awful way of his and terrified Silver down to his bones.

“I want you because I used to wish you dead but you still pulled me out of the fucking sea when I was sinking.” Flint rocks into Silver and Silver moans and relives that instant when he was choking on seawater and yet reacted on pure instinct, and not one of self-preservation, to dive even deeper down to free Flint from the profound hold of the ocean. He feels as overwhelmed as he did then, chaos and debris around him but somehow, somewhere within him, an inner calm that rooted him and made him able to do what he did.

“I want you because you wormed your way into the heart of every single one of my crew but only by getting yourself punched along the way.” Flint pulls harder on Silver’s hair and Silver’s breath quickens even more, loving the way his scalp stings from it, remembering spitting the blood from his mouth and nursing his jaw while secretly warmed by the way Flint had smiled at him when he’d been knocked down to the floor.

“I want you because you lied to me and stole the Urca gold from me and then you fucking gave up your share of it anyway and you told me all this because you’re clearly just _trying_ to infuriate me in every way,” Flint says, and he fucks into Silver so deep and hard that Silver feels wild, wild like killing Dufresne had made him feel, alight with power in every nerve.

“I want you because— _because_ , John, the world shifted beneath our feet a long time ago, and it keeps shifting, every time—when you and I captured that fucking warship together, when you and I killed those fucking sharks together, when you told me how good it feels to be in the darkness, with me, and when you even knew to ask that fucking question about where the war began for me when no one else would ever _think_ to ask something like that.”

Flint’s hand, the one not grasping Silver’s hair, is gripping Silver’s thigh, fingers digging into Silver’s flesh hard enough to bruise, and Flint is picking up his pace, slamming into Silver faster and faster and Silver is quaking, gasping, part of the blanket scrunched in his fist, as he listens to the slap of Flint’s skin on his and the violent creaking of the bed frame, distantly worried that it might just collapse under them if this goes on any longer but not quite caring, wanting this to last forever.

“I want you because you’re a rude little shit who tells me things like how you’re going to be my end but you—” Flint’s breathing is becoming more and more rough and uneven, and Silver hears that and it makes his whole body quiver with delight— “you’re just being honest.” 

Flint is saying ‘I want you’ but Silver realises he’s hearing ‘I love you’, and Silver doesn’t quite know how to cope with the way that makes him feel, heart pounding too quick within his ribs, so he lets himself drown in sensation instead, the damp heat of Flint’s strong, sweat-soaked chest pressed flush against his back, the persistent ache in his scalp as Flint refuses to relinquish his tight hold on Silver’s tresses, and he rocks backward into each of Flint’s unrelenting thrusts.

“I want you because you’re so good for me, John, letting me fuck you like this and making all these pretty noises for me.” Silver isn’t expecting the sharp turn that took, the smirk he hears in Flint’s voice. “And your cock is so beautiful and red and hard and I can’t wait for you to fuck me with it another time.” Flint nips at Silver’s ear, and it’s only then that Silver realises that it’s true, he is so fucking hard, and then Flint’s hand is upon him, tugging at his cock as fast as he fucks into Silver.

“Do you understand me now?” Flint says, and Silver thinks about Flint walking down to the edge of the water today as the smoke was still clearing, covered in blood, and Silver had walked down the bank on the other side and looked across the water and felt his blood sing, that someday they might prove to be each other’s destruction but today, today Silver is only glad that Flint is alive and that he will get to touch him again.

“Yes,” Silver breathes, “yes, _James_ , I—” And then he loses all words when Flint bites into the back of Silver’s neck again, sending a tremor down his spine as he cries out and comes apart in Flint’s hand.

He feels Flint shudder against his back, Flint swearing softly into Silver’s hair as he thrusts deep inside Silver once more, twice, and then stills.

“I can’t believe I managed to get you to stop talking for so long,” Flint says, after a moment, triumph apparent in his voice as he withdraws from Silver and retrieves a cloth from the side to clean them up. 

Silver rolls onto his back and huffs, but his eyelids are already drooping and he can barely summon the energy for a retort. “You won’t be so lucky next time,” he mutters. “When I fuck you.” One eye closes but he keeps the other eye open just long enough to see Flint smile with the anticipation of that pleasure, and sated warmth pools in Silver’s stomach.

He listens to the rustle of clothing as Flint dresses, and then Flint drops an impossibly tender kiss to Silver’s forehead. Silver opens his eyes again to watch Flint leave, and he wonders when they might ever get the opportunity to sleep in a bed together, but his exhaustion soon sweeps away the wistfulness of that thought.

Flint definitely had a point, last night. If Silver had to get up in a few hours and go into battle tomorrow, he certainly doesn’t think he would be able to manage that.

* * *

The next morning, he walks into the hut where a number of people are sitting and having breakfast, and he’s pleased to see Flint among them. Flint catches sight of him and nods.

“Good morning, Captain,” Silver says, as he walks up to Flint, recalling the warm memory of last night, when he said Flint’s first name, and thrilled at the prospect that Flint might soon pull that name out of him again.

“It _is_ a rather good morning,” Flint says, smiling at Silver with the suggestion of something slow and heavy that forces Silver to suppress a wicked shiver. He sits down next to Flint, and takes some fruit for himself, just as Flint deliberately reaches for it at the same time so that their hands brush, and Silver feels stupid with the pleasure that something as small as that gives him.

Sunlight filters through the walls, and there’s food on the table and cool fresh water to drink, and though the war will carry on, though more blood will be spilt, this morning there is only this. Silver feels an ease through his limbs that has even soothed the ever-present ache in his leg. Flint is beside him, chewing bread silently but looking more relaxed than Silver has ever seen him, and Flint—Flint loved Thomas, but Flint also loves _him_ , and Silver still isn’t sure what to do with that fact except keep it safe in his heart for now. He thinks back to the Doldrums when he so fervently believed that Flint’s mind became reality.

He is still convinced of its truth. Only Flint’s mind is capable of more than rage, more than despair, more than anguish. There are demons beneath Flint’s skin, ready to kindle consuming fire in him in an instant, but there are also other things, kinder things.

Silver knows that now.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me on [tumblr](http://reluming.tumblr.com/) and get really emotional about pirates with me. Comments are infinitely appreciated! <3


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